Still another woman wrote to me about her aspiration to an executive-level position and the predicament of doing so with a 2-year-old at home: “The dilemma is in no way the result of having a toddler: After all, executive men seem to enjoy increased promotions with every additional offspring. It is the way work continues to be circumscribed as something that happens ‘in an office,’ and/or ‘between 8–6’ that causes such conflict. I haven’t yet been presented with a shred of reasonable justification for insisting my job requires me to be sitting in this fixed, 15 sq foot room, 20 miles from my home.”

Source: A Toxic Work World – The New York Times

So writes Anne-Marie Slaughter of the outdated notion that knowledge work requires a separate, time-defined space in a centralized commuter office (CCO). Her correspondent is right: there really isn’t a logical rationale. It’s Industrial Age custom and practice and no longer necessary and appropriate in the 21st century when the information and communications technology tools knowledge workers need to do their work are widely accessible outside of CCOs. These tools disintermediate the time and distance constraints that place an unneeded and heavy burden on individuals and families.